Essay: What I love about Harry
by CartoonJessie
Summary: This is just an essay I wrote for my English teacher. Please R/R! (Also notify me of spelling errors, cause my native language is Dutch! Oiks...)


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Hi! I'm Dutch and this is an essay I had to write for my English teacher! I would really appreciate it if you'ld read it and tell me where I should improve myself! And I wouldn't mind discussing about the themes either! :) So, please R/R! :) 

What I love about Harry

Talking about _Harry Potter_ in front of a bunch of adults usually raises a couple of eyebrows, if not worse… Some even call you insane and make you feel like a complete idiot. After all, _Harry Potter_ is just for kids. It's not even real! And everything is just blown up for the money! Yet I absolutely _love_ it! And so do many others, and I'm not just talking about the kids… The statements those muggles (non-magical folks, people that don't read _Harry_ _Potter_) make must be incorrect. 

First of all, it's not _just_ for kids. The few adults that have picked up the book have been reported to like it as much as their offspring. After all, the book may start with eleven-year olds, they do grow up. In the seventh book, _Harry_ _Potter_ and his friends will be eighteen, so it won't really be about kids anymore. (For your information: each book describes one year at Hogwarts, the British wizard school.)

Kids' books can be amusing to read, but they often lack depth. Usually they just tell stories, and sometimes they deal with a theme like love, family or death. _Harry Potter_ must be an exception because JK Rowling writes about a zillion interesting themes that not even "adult" writers dare to deal with. Death is in fact the most important theme throughout the seven books and Rowling shamelessly deals with this theme in "a children's book". What makes a person good or bad? How do you deal with idolatry on one hand and jealousy on the other hand? Whose right is it to take vengeance on a person? Rowling doesn't always answer the questions, but at least she's got the guts to ask them.

Something that makes the book even more interesting to read is the intrigue between the characters. And I don't just mean between the teens, but also between the professors and between the parents. There are too many conflicts to name! Some of the most interesting are the conflicts between Voldemort and Harry's parents (why did Voldemort kill them? This question is still unanswered after four books) or the conflict between Hagrid and Dumbledore (why did headmaster Dumbledore keep Hagrid as gamekeeper when Hagrid got expelled decennia ago? They deal with that in book 2.) And there are also the ones between Ron and Hermione (do they love to hate eachother or hate to love each other, because they're always arguing or having a fight) and the one between Black and Snape (Why can't they just get a long? Black _only_ almost killed Snape…). I could continue with this list for another ten pages at least, but I won't. 

Then there are also those people that simply refuse to read the books 'because it is not real'. I always find that the lamest excuse of them all. Movies like _Star Wars_ and_ Indiana Jones_ weren't real either. Nor is the book _The Lord of the Rings_, yet everyone seems to respect those. It didn't seem to bother anyone that those stories were unreal. 

The conflicts and emotions in the _Harry Potter_ novels are as real as can be and it's for those intrigues that people keep reading the books. They are very appealing and discuss-worthy. The magic just brings the story into a more pleasant and interesting atmosphere and adds more humour to the story.

The _Harry Potter_ universe is not that farfetched. The story starts from our 'muggle' world and the reader slowly gets introduced to this hidden magical world that us 'muggles' just can't see because we're no wizards. In the books, the magical world exists right next to our own! It makes the reader believe we actually _could_ be living in a universe like that.

The parents however don't really seem to mind that their kids are reading fantasy stories. They are more concerned about the proportion the _Harry Potter_ phenomenon is taking. It is beginning to get blown up just like _Pokémon_ got. Now the kids don't seem to mind about that at all. But then again, they're not the ones paying the goodies. The parents are cursing _JK Rowling_ for the merchandise.

However, what is that rule in the world of economy again? Ah yes, supply and demand. There wouldn't have been all these toys if no one had asked for it! The fans _asked_ for the merchandise! The kids are just dying to get these toys to play with because they want to play in the _Harry Potter_ universe. They can't just let Barbie be Hermione and Ken be Harry. It's the fantasy they want to live. 

Some people also claim that the movie was only made to reach an even larger crowd then the books had. They also say that it's just another way to make a lot of money in a short period. And they say the reason they have started filming the second and third movie already is because they can't wait until nobody will remember _Harry Potter_ because it wouldn't bring in any money! But the _real_ reason they have started the filming of the second movie is because the young actors are growing as well! _Chris Columbus_, the director of the movie, wants to finish one movie each year, just like each book is a school year and _JK Rowling_ releases a book every year. He doesn't want _Daniel Radcliffe_ (the actor that plays Harry Potter, a twelve-year-old) to be 25 by the time they start filming the last movie. The movie isn't superfluous at all according to me. I think it added a lot more joy to reading the books again because this time you could imagine the characters more vividly. And I must say that they were all brilliantly cast!

The problem now is that many people are being prejudiced toward the _Harry Potter_ phenomenon and I admit that I was too before I read the books last December. After all, why would I want to read some child books about a bunch of wizards and waist my precious money to add to _JK Rowling_s wealth? Honestly, I still don't know why I suddenly _did_ start to read the books, but I do know one thing: I have had no regrets about it so far! 

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